7 ms·

Rootless Root - The Unix Koans of Master Foo (Eric S. Raymond)

100 points by mahipal 16y ago

alnayyir 16y ago
As much as I love zen koans, especially hacker koans, it's worth remembering that ESR doesn't really code and I don't know if he merits the 'authority' that some people ascribe to him.
- aaronbrethorst 16y ago
  Those who can, do. Those who can't, dress up in Jedi costumes and shout out malapropisms[1]. [1] http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-revenge.html http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-revenge.html
  - alnayyir 16y ago
    Frankly, I stayed up so late last night/this morning that I had nightmares when I did finally pass out because I was hacking on a compiler. ESR can't sling enough code to contribute to a random OSS project without people getting exasperated, of late. Don't spout platitudes at people you don't know.
    - mahmud 16y ago
      I think aaron is in agreement with you :-)
      - alnayyir 16y ago
        I'm terrible at gauging that.
        aaronbrethorst 16y ago
        I am in complete agreement with you :)
- nandemo 16y ago
  What do you mean, he doesn't really code? He has certainly produced open source code in the past. You mean he's not primarily a programmer at the moment?
  - alnayyir 16y ago
    The last time he tried to contribute code was more than a little embarrassing. He managed to be on the ground at the right time for the whole free software and hacker culture thing, but as far as actual coding goes, he's nothing special.
    - jrockway 16y ago
      Hey, come on... fetchmail deleted a lot of my mail back when I used POP3 over dialup. Without fetchmail, who would have been motivated enough to write offlineimap!?
    - kiba 16y ago
      Oh you mean Wesnoth, GPSD, and INTERCAL? Well, haters gotcha hate, especially when there is a guru.
    - Symmetry 16y ago
      Why did you feel it neccesary to criticize his coding skills when we are discussing a semi-humorous piece of writing though? Does Reymond's skill or lack thereof these days effect whether the Unix Koans are worthwhile? If there's something wrong or inaccurate in them surely you could point that out rather than proceeding straight to criticizing their source. I'm having trouble understanding your comments here as anything other than defensiveness or elitism.
      - oconnore 16y ago
        Whether or not he is a good programmer or not is sort of irrelevant. I think he exaggerates his position as "spokesperson of hackers everywhere", and it is occasionally annoying (although more often I do enjoy his writing).
      - 16y ago
- sp332 16y ago
  ESR might not be "hard core" enough for you, but he's been studying hackers for decades. He's an established authority on hackers and hacker culture. I love zen koans, especially hacker koans, This is a validation of his authority.
  - alnayyir 16y ago
    Making observations isn't a testament to authority nor skill. Stop acting like he's some kind of sacred lamb and go look at the actual work he's produced other than being a 'personality'. I thought Hackerne.ws would be more circumspect about this.
    - _delirium 16y ago
      But that is work he's produced. I'm not sure whether he's a particularly good sociologist/chronicler of hacker culture or not, but that work should be judged on its own merits. Is it good sociology/history, or is it poorly done/inaccurate/done-better-elsewhere? I don't think looking at the quality of his C code is a particularly useful way of answering that question. I mean, some minimal technical knowledge is probably necessary to do a good job at it, but beyond that I'm not sure if there's good correlation between awesome-coder and great-chronicler.
      - derefr 16y ago
        I think what people are up in arms about, is that ESR calls himself a hacker—and most hackers, being programmers as well, think of hacking as referring to a particular kind of programming. These hackers, thus, form their meritocratic scale of "hackerlyness" around programming ability. However, as ESR himself writes: http://catb.org/jargon/html/meaning-of-hack.html http://catb.org/jargon/html/meaning-of-hack.html > Hacking might be characterized as 'an appropriate application of ingenuity'. Whether the result is a quick-and-dirty patchwork job or a carefully crafted work of art, you have to admire the cleverness that went into it. An important secondary meaning of hack is 'a creative practical joke'. This kind of hack is easier to explain to non-hackers than the programming kind. Of course, some hacks have both natures. If this is how ESR defines "hacking", then his claim to be a hacker is not, also, an implicit claim that he is a good programmer (that one must then refute.) He simply claims to "apply ingenuity" and "joke around"—which, it's pretty clear from the OP link, he does, in the medium of prose.
pak 16y ago
As somebody continually interested in new and successful user interface ideas, the GUI one has me tickled pink: http://catb.org/esr/writings/unix-koans/gui-programmer.html http://catb.org/esr/writings/unix-koans/gui-programmer.html because it is true that point and click will always suffer from a loss of expressivity in the way that this story so perfectly captures. In a way, though, the koan also illustrates the flip side: if the expressive solution to something is a new language, how do you empower somebody who doesn't know or can't learn the language? The same way a person who goes to a foreign land tries to communicate basic ideas--by sign language, or symbols, or pictures. Sure, sometimes you will be misinterpreted and get peed on. And you can only handle the basics, like asking for food or directions; discussing philosophy or politics is probably out of the question. But it's better than not being able to communicate at all, and for many problems, people are happy with buying the pictographic toolkit that lets them do their job.
- loewenskind 16y ago
  It's funny, but nonsensical. A counter would be to tell a story about one student explaining every last detail of some device and the other student still not understanding, while the GUI student just shows a picture and everything is instantly clear. IMO command line "interfaces" are only suitable to programs. A command line interface is basically a language for communicating with the program. I'd rather not spend the time learning a substantial amount of the language just to be able to use the program for common tasks. An example of this is revision control systems. I always personally liked darcs but was limited to the command line interface. When I tried out GitX I made the switch instantly after being loyal to darcs for years. Sadly there are still things you have to use the command line for in GitX but there is no reason it has to stay that way.
  - sophacles 16y ago
    Ah yes, the old "one true way" argument. It is sad to such great foolishness in someone who has used git and darcs. Perhaps you should re-read the koan without the assumption that it is saying "GUI is bad". It is really about the "only one way and that way is GUI" attitude.
aufreak3 16y ago
One of the absolute best techie koans I've come across is this "closures vs objects" one by Anton Van Straaten - http://people.csail.mit.edu/gregs/ll1-discuss-archive-html/msg03277.html http://people.csail.mit.edu/gregs/ll1-discuss-archive-html/m... Reproduced below - The venerable master Qc Na was walking with his student, Anton. Hoping to prompt the master into a discussion, Anton said "Master, I have heard that objects are a very good thing - is this true?" Qc Na looked pityingly at his student and replied, "Foolish pupil - objects are merely a poor man's closures." Chastised, Anton took his leave from his master and returned to his cell, intent on studying closures. He carefully read the entire "Lambda: The Ultimate..." series of papers and its cousins, and implemented a small Scheme interpreter with a closure-based object system. He learned much, and looked forward to informing his master of his progress. On his next walk with Qc Na, Anton attempted to impress his master by saying "Master, I have diligently studied the matter, and now understand that objects are truly a poor man's closures." Qc Na responded by hitting Anton with his stick, saying "When will you learn? Closures are a poor man's object." At that moment, Anton became enlightened.
- othermaciej 16y ago
  Unfortunately, that's too logical to be a real koan.
pjscott 16y ago
The problem with articles written by ESR is that the actual discussion gets drowned out by people complaining about the author. The signal to noise ratio goes way, way down.
- neilk 16y ago
  Almost every piece of ESR's writing suffers due to his assertions of brilliance or being the unofficial representative of hackerdom. This is usually present in almost every sentence. If you're not an ESR fan it's excruciating. It's a shame because he's a genuinely skilled writer, especially with parodic forms like this. Luckily there is no "Eric" character in these koans.
  - borism 16y ago
    I don't know anyone who is esr persona's fan. There is a large community who are his hackerdom writings fans and there is a small community who are fans of his wingnut writings, but it seems to me he doesn't get a lot of friends IRL.
    - bitwize 16y ago
      He does. Some of them are hackers, but it seems a lot of them he meets through his other hobbies: wargaming, shooting, swordfighting, etc. ESR is programming's William Shatner. His various doings get this big inflated ego ascribed to him, but in real life he's just this guy, you know?
      - neilk 16y ago
        No, he just writes blog posts with titles like "The First Time I Changed History". http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2539 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2539 That said, in the latter half of this post he backpedals and gives the "hacker culture" credit for being able to recognize his contributions, but still -- the title of the article isn't "On the openness of the RFC process in the 80s". I don't know what to think about ESR. I disagree strongly with his interpretation of what hacker culture is, and how free software works, and personally I think it has taken us a long time to undo some of the damage he did to the discourse in both those areas. But he also legitimately influenced a lot of things for the better. Oddly, he seems to be unsatisfied with that level of achievement, and wants to be recognized as being a great statesman or visionary. If he claimed less credit he'd probably get more credit.
billswift 16y ago
Raymond wrote a post about the koans and some of his other stuff Saturday, Mystical Poetry and Mental Postures - http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2596 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2596 ; that I linked on HN - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1729978 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1729978.
tzury 16y ago
if you find the design of the site's annoying for reading, you may be willing to the readability version of it on a gingle pdf file http://dl.dropbox.com/u/135679/output.pdf http://dl.dropbox.com/u/135679/output.pdf
donaq 16y ago
This thread sort of shows exactly why ESR is where he is. Everybody seems to have a strongly held opinion of him, positive or otherwise.
athom 16y ago
Ah, this one takes me back. It's almost a pity no one else has mentioned the classic Tao of Programming by Geoffrey James: http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/tao-of-programming.html http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/tao-of-programming.html A bit dated now, and it looks like ESR has improved on the concept considerably, but this little classic will always be my favorite: "Each language has its place within the Tao. But do not program in Cobol if you can avoid it."

100 points by mahipal 16y ago

As much as I love zen koans, especially hacker koans, it's worth remembering that ESR doesn't really code and I don't know if he merits the 'authority' that some people ascribe to him.

aaronbrethorst 16y ago
Those who can, do. Those who can't, dress up in Jedi costumes and shout out malapropisms[1]. [1] http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-revenge.html http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-revenge.html
- alnayyir 16y ago
  Frankly, I stayed up so late last night/this morning that I had nightmares when I did finally pass out because I was hacking on a compiler. ESR can't sling enough code to contribute to a random OSS project without people getting exasperated, of late. Don't spout platitudes at people you don't know.
  - mahmud 16y ago
    I think aaron is in agreement with you :-)
    - alnayyir 16y ago
      I'm terrible at gauging that.
      - aaronbrethorst 16y ago
        I am in complete agreement with you :)
nandemo 16y ago
What do you mean, he doesn't really code? He has certainly produced open source code in the past. You mean he's not primarily a programmer at the moment?
- alnayyir 16y ago
  The last time he tried to contribute code was more than a little embarrassing. He managed to be on the ground at the right time for the whole free software and hacker culture thing, but as far as actual coding goes, he's nothing special.
  - jrockway 16y ago
    Hey, come on... fetchmail deleted a lot of my mail back when I used POP3 over dialup. Without fetchmail, who would have been motivated enough to write offlineimap!?
  - kiba 16y ago
    Oh you mean Wesnoth, GPSD, and INTERCAL? Well, haters gotcha hate, especially when there is a guru.
  - Symmetry 16y ago
    Why did you feel it neccesary to criticize his coding skills when we are discussing a semi-humorous piece of writing though? Does Reymond's skill or lack thereof these days effect whether the Unix Koans are worthwhile? If there's something wrong or inaccurate in them surely you could point that out rather than proceeding straight to criticizing their source. I'm having trouble understanding your comments here as anything other than defensiveness or elitism.
    - oconnore 16y ago
      Whether or not he is a good programmer or not is sort of irrelevant. I think he exaggerates his position as "spokesperson of hackers everywhere", and it is occasionally annoying (although more often I do enjoy his writing).
    - 16y ago
sp332 16y ago
ESR might not be "hard core" enough for you, but he's been studying hackers for decades. He's an established authority on hackers and hacker culture. I love zen koans, especially hacker koans, This is a validation of his authority.
- alnayyir 16y ago
  Making observations isn't a testament to authority nor skill. Stop acting like he's some kind of sacred lamb and go look at the actual work he's produced other than being a 'personality'. I thought Hackerne.ws would be more circumspect about this.
  - _delirium 16y ago
    But that is work he's produced. I'm not sure whether he's a particularly good sociologist/chronicler of hacker culture or not, but that work should be judged on its own merits. Is it good sociology/history, or is it poorly done/inaccurate/done-better-elsewhere? I don't think looking at the quality of his C code is a particularly useful way of answering that question. I mean, some minimal technical knowledge is probably necessary to do a good job at it, but beyond that I'm not sure if there's good correlation between awesome-coder and great-chronicler.
    - derefr 16y ago
      I think what people are up in arms about, is that ESR calls himself a hacker—and most hackers, being programmers as well, think of hacking as referring to a particular kind of programming. These hackers, thus, form their meritocratic scale of "hackerlyness" around programming ability. However, as ESR himself writes: http://catb.org/jargon/html/meaning-of-hack.html http://catb.org/jargon/html/meaning-of-hack.html > Hacking might be characterized as 'an appropriate application of ingenuity'. Whether the result is a quick-and-dirty patchwork job or a carefully crafted work of art, you have to admire the cleverness that went into it. An important secondary meaning of hack is 'a creative practical joke'. This kind of hack is easier to explain to non-hackers than the programming kind. Of course, some hacks have both natures. If this is how ESR defines "hacking", then his claim to be a hacker is not, also, an implicit claim that he is a good programmer (that one must then refute.) He simply claims to "apply ingenuity" and "joke around"—which, it's pretty clear from the OP link, he does, in the medium of prose.

pak 16y ago

As somebody continually interested in new and successful user interface ideas, the GUI one has me tickled pink: http://catb.org/esr/writings/unix-koans/gui-programmer.html http://catb.org/esr/writings/unix-koans/gui-programmer.html because it is true that point and click will always suffer from a loss of expressivity in the way that this story so perfectly captures. In a way, though, the koan also illustrates the flip side: if the expressive solution to something is a new language, how do you empower somebody who doesn't know or can't learn the language? The same way a person who goes to a foreign land tries to communicate basic ideas--by sign language, or symbols, or pictures. Sure, sometimes you will be misinterpreted and get peed on. And you can only handle the basics, like asking for food or directions; discussing philosophy or politics is probably out of the question. But it's better than not being able to communicate at all, and for many problems, people are happy with buying the pictographic toolkit that lets them do their job.

loewenskind 16y ago
It's funny, but nonsensical. A counter would be to tell a story about one student explaining every last detail of some device and the other student still not understanding, while the GUI student just shows a picture and everything is instantly clear. IMO command line "interfaces" are only suitable to programs. A command line interface is basically a language for communicating with the program. I'd rather not spend the time learning a substantial amount of the language just to be able to use the program for common tasks. An example of this is revision control systems. I always personally liked darcs but was limited to the command line interface. When I tried out GitX I made the switch instantly after being loyal to darcs for years. Sadly there are still things you have to use the command line for in GitX but there is no reason it has to stay that way.
- sophacles 16y ago
  Ah yes, the old "one true way" argument. It is sad to such great foolishness in someone who has used git and darcs. Perhaps you should re-read the koan without the assumption that it is saying "GUI is bad". It is really about the "only one way and that way is GUI" attitude.

aufreak3 16y ago

One of the absolute best techie koans I've come across is this "closures vs objects" one by Anton Van Straaten - http://people.csail.mit.edu/gregs/ll1-discuss-archive-html/msg03277.html http://people.csail.mit.edu/gregs/ll1-discuss-archive-html/m... Reproduced below - The venerable master Qc Na was walking with his student, Anton. Hoping to prompt the master into a discussion, Anton said "Master, I have heard that objects are a very good thing - is this true?" Qc Na looked pityingly at his student and replied, "Foolish pupil - objects are merely a poor man's closures." Chastised, Anton took his leave from his master and returned to his cell, intent on studying closures. He carefully read the entire "Lambda: The Ultimate..." series of papers and its cousins, and implemented a small Scheme interpreter with a closure-based object system. He learned much, and looked forward to informing his master of his progress. On his next walk with Qc Na, Anton attempted to impress his master by saying "Master, I have diligently studied the matter, and now understand that objects are truly a poor man's closures." Qc Na responded by hitting Anton with his stick, saying "When will you learn? Closures are a poor man's object." At that moment, Anton became enlightened.

othermaciej 16y ago
Unfortunately, that's too logical to be a real koan.

pjscott 16y ago

The problem with articles written by ESR is that the actual discussion gets drowned out by people complaining about the author. The signal to noise ratio goes way, way down.

neilk 16y ago
Almost every piece of ESR's writing suffers due to his assertions of brilliance or being the unofficial representative of hackerdom. This is usually present in almost every sentence. If you're not an ESR fan it's excruciating. It's a shame because he's a genuinely skilled writer, especially with parodic forms like this. Luckily there is no "Eric" character in these koans.
- borism 16y ago
  I don't know anyone who is esr persona's fan. There is a large community who are his hackerdom writings fans and there is a small community who are fans of his wingnut writings, but it seems to me he doesn't get a lot of friends IRL.
  - bitwize 16y ago
    He does. Some of them are hackers, but it seems a lot of them he meets through his other hobbies: wargaming, shooting, swordfighting, etc. ESR is programming's William Shatner. His various doings get this big inflated ego ascribed to him, but in real life he's just this guy, you know?
    - neilk 16y ago
      No, he just writes blog posts with titles like "The First Time I Changed History". http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2539 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2539 That said, in the latter half of this post he backpedals and gives the "hacker culture" credit for being able to recognize his contributions, but still -- the title of the article isn't "On the openness of the RFC process in the 80s". I don't know what to think about ESR. I disagree strongly with his interpretation of what hacker culture is, and how free software works, and personally I think it has taken us a long time to undo some of the damage he did to the discourse in both those areas. But he also legitimately influenced a lot of things for the better. Oddly, he seems to be unsatisfied with that level of achievement, and wants to be recognized as being a great statesman or visionary. If he claimed less credit he'd probably get more credit.

billswift 16y ago

Raymond wrote a post about the koans and some of his other stuff Saturday, Mystical Poetry and Mental Postures - http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2596 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2596 ; that I linked on HN - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1729978 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1729978.

tzury 16y ago

if you find the design of the site's annoying for reading, you may be willing to the readability version of it on a gingle pdf file http://dl.dropbox.com/u/135679/output.pdf http://dl.dropbox.com/u/135679/output.pdf

donaq 16y ago

This thread sort of shows exactly why ESR is where he is. Everybody seems to have a strongly held opinion of him, positive or otherwise.

athom 16y ago

Ah, this one takes me back. It's almost a pity no one else has mentioned the classic Tao of Programming by Geoffrey James: http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/tao-of-programming.html http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/tao-of-programming.html A bit dated now, and it looks like ESR has improved on the concept considerably, but this little classic will always be my favorite: "Each language has its place within the Tao. But do not program in Cobol if you can avoid it."